Space Cat began and was bait. As usual with the first round, everyone took Cabin cards. There’s not much else to do, and it’s the only place to get weapons.

Since the zombies are typically too far out to hit during the first perform actions phase, the Event card didn’t really do much. We drew Attracted by Gunfire, but no one had fired a gun.

We also got lucky with our first zombie draw. We drew two survivors. These tokens carry the radio pieces we need.
Unfortunately one of them died immediately in a fight with a zombie (thereby becoming a zombie) which meant we’d have to venture out of the cabin for that radio piece. The bright side was that he took three zombies with him, and the other survivor managed to kill one zombie.

We then moved the zombies, and a few were in range of our weapons.
Space Cat killed one, Chubby Unicorn one, Clumsy Ninja two and wounded another.

No zombies were in range for the Professor, Shutter, or President Gamer.

It had been awhile since The Professor and I played Oregon, so I actually used the rule book to go over the game. I think the scoring is the most difficult part because it varies so much from building to building, and sometimes you can score multiple times (Churches allow for this), and other times you only score once (Groups of Farmers). Despite this, game play is fairly simple, and we picked up on it quickly. The Professor started out with an early lead, but Space Cat quickly came from behind and left us in the dust.

Mid-game

No matter what we did, we just couldn’t catch up to her. The Professor had a chance with his coal and gold, but despite the 40 extra points he gained from that, Space Cat was still ahead.

This is part 1 in the story mode version of a Dead Panic play through. If that all sounds strange, head to the intro post

Father Michael groaned as he came to. He gingerly touched his head as he slowly opened his eyes. He recognized the others. There was David, a personal trainer, Julie, a delivery driver, Sandra, a police officer, Ray, a paramedic, and Al, a construction worker. It took him another moment to remember where they were and what had happened. It appeared the zombie apocalypse had begun. They had run for their lives and ended up in a cabin in the woods. Zombie infested woods, so they probably weren’t as safe as they could be. He reached up to touch his cross, and found the front of his shirt was damp. His hand came away bloody.

“What?” he croaked.

“We’re not sure where all that blood came from,” David said from his post near a couple of windows, “but it’s not yours. It’ll probably attract the zombies, though, so be careful.”

Father Michael nodded in return. With the zombies still lurking a safe distance away, they all decided to see if there was anything useful in the cabin. Father Michael found a pistol with two bullets and a bag of trail mix while David discovered a working chainsaw and a toolbox containing a hammer and some nails.

“What kind of people own this place?” Julie asked holding up a rifle and an ax, and then passing another rifle to Sandra.

Game play is similar to Castle Panic in that zombies appear and move in the 6 arcs and players use cards to kill the zombies before they get to the inner ring (the cabin). However, there are a lot of differences. This time players are on the board as tokens (rather than just being defenders of the castle) and can only attack zombies within their token’s range. The Cabin Cards are similar to the deck in Castle Panic except when this deck runs out, that’s it. You’ve searched the entire cabin, and there’s nothing left to find. Another new element is the Bait token. This gets passed around during the game because whoever has the Bait token is the player the zombies will come after. In Castle Panic players place new monsters at the end of their turns, but in Dead Panic everyone takes two actions, an Event card is drawn, and then new zombies are placed and moved. Winning is different as well: in this game the goal is to assemble the radio, call the van, and get everyone into the van. Once all players who are still alive (someone might get turned into a zombie along the way) enter the van, the game is won, even if the cabin is completely destroyed.

The posts on the blog will, generally, fall within two broad topics: Story and Play-by-Play Breakdown.

Story mode posts will strive to frame the game play using a narrative structure (e.g. Kyra and Merisiel entered Sandpoint and headed for the Rusty Dragon Inn to see if there were wrongs that needed righting.), while the Play-by-Play Breakdown will speak more to the choices being made in the games (e.g. Kyra and Merisiel start at The Rusty Dragon Inn; Kyra explores, encounters a Mace and acquires it).

Furthermore the following categories are used to help delineate game types:Read More »

In the beginning, six intrepid friends set out on an epic journey, determined to complete each quest presented to them. Some will succeed and some will fail. Some will bring them together while others will divide them. They may meet other adventurers along the way, exploring new quests. In the end, no one knows who will remain, yet they journey onward.

If you’re going on an epic journey, you pretty much have to be intrepid right?

Several years ago, the six of us began meeting once a month for game night, playing a variety of games. We win some, we lose some. We play cooperative games as well as competitive. Occasionally we’ll play games with people outside our group, usually games that can’t accommodate six players. Life happens, though, and sometimes that means people move on (literally), but we’ll continue to enjoy another friendly game night.